Final Fantasy 15 Director Talks Specifics

Some of the technical specifications for Final Fantasy XV were just revealed by the game's director, Hajime Tabata. He explained that the game uses a dynamic resolution that scales up to 1080p on both the Xbox One and PS4 and that they're still targeting 30 smooth frames-per-second.

According to Gamespot, in an interview with Dengeki Online, Hajime Tabata explained that they're using a dynamic resolution with Final Fantasy XV's free demo, aptly called the Platinum Demo. The resolution scales to the situation, but they don't mention how low it goes, only how high it renders the pixels with an internal resolution of up to 1920 x 1080 with progressive scanning.

In a translation from Dualshockers, Hajime Tabata also confirmed that the game's frame rate could be better, but that the demo was not a technical showcase. It seems weird because usually demos are both designed to give players a taste of playability and to work as a technical showcase. In the case of the Final Fantasy XV: Platinum Demo, he mentions that it was more about giving players an opportunity to experience the world that they crafted and to get a small hint at what they have in store, not necessarily to count pixels and look for frame drops.

Nevertheless, some gamers counted pixels and looked for frame drops.

According to some of the gamers who put in a bit of time with the demo, frame rates dropped as low as 15fps at times when the effects, post-processing, and physics were running full steam ahead. Tabata did acknowledge the lower-than-acceptable FPS and the team will continue to optimize Final Fantasy XV leading up to release. The game is supposed to be 1080p at 30fps, but if it regularly dips down into the 20fps zone, it could hurt the overall playability since input latency and response timing would be greatly affected by the frame-rate issues.

And just to drive that point home: input latency is a pretty big issue this time around for Final Fantasy because the game uses a real-time battle system where attacks, combos, dodging and teleporting are all intertwined to a player's reflexes and hand-eye coordination. A few dropped frames or some stutter and it could severely impact how well players carry out their combat deeds during battle.

There's an easy fix to this problem, though. A lot of gamers have been asking Square to simply port Final Fantasy XV to PC, where they could theoretically enjoy the game at 4K and 120fps; no drops, no stutter.

Hajime Tabata has not ruled out a PC port for the upcoming JRPG but, like the many times before, he has reiterated that no final decisions have been put into place. Given that Square really has been pumping a lot of their classics out on PC lately, it would seem like a huge missed opportunity to forgo PC gamers on Steam, especially those with the big rigs to make Final Fantasy XV look better than ever.

Nevertheless, the team still has several months to get in the patch work and make sure the performance is up to par. You can look for Square's AAA JRPG to launch on September 30th for Xbox One and PS4. The Platinum Demo and first episode of the anime are available right now.